3/31/2010 @ 2:00PM

Colombia Si, Castro No

As farm-state Congressmen are keeping themselves busy offering trade benefits to Fidel Castro, last week Canada’s Parliament announced agreement on an accord with Colombia that could cost American farmers $1.7 billion in exports. Our farmers have a right to ask why some in Washington want to waste precious days on the legislative calendar to hand unilateral concessions to Cuba in the midst of brutal crackdown there while refusing to take the time to push trade accords with three of our staunchest allies.

The Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act (H.R. 4645), introduced last month, would authorize tourism and ease exports to Cuba. By allowing leisure travel to Cuba without requiring even a hint of liberalization from the regime in Havana, this bill would deliver a diplomatic victory and a windfall of tourist dollars to the Cuban military that runs much of the island’s segregated hotel industry.

The fact is millions of non-American tourists have visited Cuba for decades. If anything, the regime has grown more repressive–strengthening its police state with the precious hard currency raised from tourists. For many years, hundreds of thousands of Americans have gone to Cuba under a dozen different categories of lawful travel. A year ago, President Obama loosened some limits on family travel, but he wisely refused to allow tourism or make further concessions until he saw some sign that the Cuban regime would ease up on its own people.

In the last few weeks, our president heard Havana’s answer, as dozens of women staging a peaceful protest in the capital city were dragged, punched, kicked and detained by Cuban state security. Prisoners of conscience are staging hunger strikes in the faint hope that the world will stop appeasing the regime that torments them. Orlando Zapata Tamayo died five weeks ago, and 48-year-old journalist and psychologist Guillermo Fariñas is clinging to life right now.

“[I]nstead of embracing an opportunity to enter a new era, Cuban authorities continue to respond to the aspirations of the Cuban people with a clenched fist,” President Obama responded. Although the president seems more convinced than ever that we must place strict preconditions on any changes in U.S. policy, H.R. 4645 would take that discretion and diplomatic leverage out of his hands.

A second part of this legislation would allow Cuba to obtain routine financing to purchase agriculture goods from the United States. I helped put in place a requirement that Cuba–one of the world’s greatest debtors and credit risks–pay cash for our farm goods. Foreign diplomats still complain to me that our people are getting cash, while theirs are getting stiffed. I cannot see how we could improve on those terms. And it will not be long before Castro demands that we offer subsidies or credits to his bankrupt regime.

We can do right by our farmers without compromising our values. There are three other trade deals pending in Congress today–with Colombia, Panama and South Korea–that would mean much more for American farmers, workers and consumers. Every day that we fail to act on these accords, our competitors can take those markets away from us. For example, last week, Canada’s Liberal Party helped broker a deal to advance a similar pact with Colombia. The Conservative government has agreed to reintroduce the measure with a Liberal amendment requiring annual human rights reports, and the trade accord could be approved by a majority in Parliament within two months. U.S. farmers now sell Colombia about $1.7 billion in wheat, barley, beef and pork, but they may lose out to Canadian competitors unless our Congress moves quickly to secure that market.

So what do agriculture sales and tourism to Cuba have in common, anyway? Not much. But hard-left Castro apologists are offering a quid pro quo to well-meaning farm state legislators, hoping that they will ignore the brutality of the Cuban regime and vote to loosen sanctions in exchange for meager sales to a bankrupt economy. The argument they make is that the 50-year-old embargo is only hurting U.S. farmers.

It is true that our policy has yet to produce the change we all want for Cuba. However, resuscitating the man who is the biggest obstacle to political and economic liberty in Cuba makes less sense today than ever. If we want boundless trade with a free, flourishing Cuban economy, we should preserve our leverage to use it with a post-Castro government–to press for broad, deep, irreversible reforms so that Cubans can reach their full potential. Making unilateral concessions to a brutal, bankrupt regime drawing its last breaths is a short-cut to nowhere.

The author was U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States and assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2001-2005. He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and managing director of Vision Americas LLC.